Mauritius Investment Corp. to Lend $415 Million in Covid Support

PORT LOUIS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Mauritius Investment Corp., a central bank unit set up to help the Indian Ocean island economy weather the coronavirus crisis, has approved 16.5 billion rupees ($415 million) of financing to companies so far.

In May 2020, the central bank formed MIC — which has access to as much as $2 billion of the nation’s international reserves — as part of relief measures for companies hurt by the Covid-19 pandemic. Tourism, a major foreign-currency earner, received the biggest blow and saw revenue declining by 69% in the first 11 months of 2020, according to central bank data.

Tourism industry entities including New Mauritius Hotels Ltd., Lux Island Resorts Ltd., and Sun Ltd. have been the main recipients and manufacturing companies are also part of the 35 requests that have been approved, the MIC said in response to queries on Tuesday. Companies submitted about 100 requests and 15 of them are still under consideration, it said.

So far, the companies have accessed the financing through issuing bonds at interest rates varying between 3% and 5%, MIC Chairman Meghnad Desai said by phone on Feb. 5.
“Our duty to support companies will stop when they will stop asking for more money from the MIC to save jobs,” he said.

Source: Bloomberg Business News